RUTH Davidson has yet to meet the stupendously wealthy Russian who won her at auction.
At the Tory party’s Black and White Ball in 2018, Lubov Chernukhin paid £20,000 for a lunch with the party’s Scottish leader.
A spokesman for the MSP told The National the two have not met for lunch, nor is a date in the diary.
Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Putin’s one-time deputy finance minister, was on the front page of the papers this week after she had dinner with the Prime Minister and six female Cabinet ministers at a luxury hotel near Buckingham Palace.
A picture of the group, posted on Instagram by Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, sparked a fresh row over cash for access.
Chernukhin and husband Vladimir, are estimated to be worth at least £230 million. Over the past seven years she has made 35 donations to the Tories worth an estimated £908,000.
The party insists she is not a Putin crony. But Vladimir Chernukhin, was Putin’s deputy finance minister and then chairman of a state-controlled bank, though they have reportedly fallen out.
He fled Moscow, and was granted a UK visa financier Nat Rothschild created a job for him in London.
LibDem deputy leader Jo Swinson called for reform of Britain’s political donation laws.
“It has been 20 days since we’ve heard anything from the Prime Minister on Brexit and the talks with Labour appear to be in deadlock and this is the priority.
“It makes the case for reform of political donations, especially a cap.”
Labour MP Chris Bryant suggested the Prime Minister’s acceptance of money from Russian donors was why she was reluctant to introduce a US style Magnitsky law, which imposes economic sanctions on Putin allies.
“Some of us have been wondering for a long time why the Government is dragging its heels on introducing a Magnitsky list,” Bryant told the Daily Mail.
“I’m beginning to smell a rat and my experience over the last few years is that whenever I’ve smelt a rat so far one eventually crawls out of the drain.”
At this year’s Black and White ball guests were invited to bid on a two-night stay in Edinburgh with Davidson, with the promise of a walk with her dog, Wilson.
The auction was presented by actor Wynne Evans, best known for his role as Gio Compario, the opera singer in the Go Compare adverts.
Chernukhin paid £135,000 for the dinner with May and the cabinet colleagues.
As well as May and Truss, Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd, immigration minister Caroline Nokes, Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley and Lords Leader Baroness Evans were all part of the dinner with the Russian ex-pat.
At a previous fundraiser she bid £16,0000 to play a tennis match against David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
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